In an age of disinformation, 'fake news' propaganda fed by anonymous bots, it's tiring to respond to erroneous accusations. But it's precisely because of the age in which we live that it is important to do so when one can: especially when you're not an Anglo-Saxon male. #Thread

I have to say, I came to this realisation late. For years, I ignored scurrilous attacks on my own work, because ignorance doesn't deal well with knowledge. It's all too often a ploy to just whip up anger and hate, instrumentalising a writer or author in order to do so.

But, I've changed my policy in that regard. Because the reality is, this is not merely about one's own reputation: it's about the state of knowledge production at work. If ignorant attacks are left unchallenged too often, ignorance becomes the basis of public narrative.

Not too long ago, a reporter, for reasons as yet rather unclear to me, attempted to characterise me as somehow sectarian. It was a completely baseless accusation, and she was attacked for it almost immediately online. I could have left it there, but decided not to.

I insisted on a corrective because it was so wrong - but also because if someone who has worked hard to draw attention to sectarianism is then erroneously considered to be sectarian themselves, then where does that leave people when they look for accurate analysis on the subject?

[In this case, the reporter privately apologised on email, and removed all the offensive public statements. Of course, that only happened after the reporter was informed their employer would be notified (I have all the emails and messages screen-shotted). But c'est la vie.]

All too often, the efforts of such misreadings have really just one purpose: to arrogate the right of defining the frames of discussion to people who are not actually effected *by* those discussions. We call this 'white privilege' in other contexts - and rightly so.

For example, I've seen too many non-Arabs try to define the frames of discussion about the Arab world - instead of taking their lead from those who actually know the region and speak its language (literally). This is a massive problem - from people on both the left and the right.

In that regard, power dynamics cannot be ignored. Anglo-Saxon Westerners have disproportionate access to international media & academia outlets as compared to people of colour (Western or not). If they use that privilege to deny or limit agency to others, that's disgraceful.

Rather, as we increase in privilege in the public sphere, it is our duty to use that privilege to give voice to those who do *not* have that privilege. And that means combating poor information as well, because invariably it will be those most vulnerable who will suffer the most.

[PSA: if you do wilfully misinterpret my work, expect your employer/outlet to get a message. Because they will. Not because it bothers me personally, but because your spreading of poor information invariably hurts others - and you shan't be doing that on my watch at my expense.]

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Ordinarily, I would leave this kind of religious illiteracy & historical ignorance by the wayside. It predominates across too many of our discussions, and I cannot keep up. But this kind of statement then animates into policies that hurt real people. So, here goes: #Thread

The idea that an amorphous 'Sunni' population has been killing an amorphous 'Shi'i' population since time immemorial is ridiculous. Around 90% of the world's Muslim population is Sunni. If they had been bent on killing all Shi'is, I doubt we'd be talking about this in 2019.

At Karbala, there were no 'Sunnis' & 'Shi'is'. The crystallisation of the Sunni & Shi'i followings into separate groupings had not taken place. This massacre took place less than 60 years after the passing of the Prophet. Calling anyone 'Sunni' at this point is incredulous.

All too often, infractions and abuses by American Muslim leaders are made out to be especially egregious in American society - as though Catholics or Jews, for example, have never faced such problems. Trying to fold these abuses into a wider Islamophobic narrative is insidious.

But there is a very particular and specific problem that Muslim American communities face, which is shown in this piece. There is no nationally accepted body that all Muslim Americans respect that can take the role of a church structure when it comes to disciplining its members.

With much respect to @Jeremy_Hunt, this is a rather ill-advised and selective approach, in my opinion. Our Foreign Office should be focusing on persecution, not a religious group just because the majority of our country's population are affiliated to it.

Let us be clear: this statement does not come out of nowhere. There is a trend, that includes visits by British parliamentarians and public figures to express support for Bashar al-Assad's regime, under the rubric of 'defending Christians'.

Moreover, there are many communities in the Arab world & the wider region that suffer persecution, & we need to focus on the phenomenon as such. Yazidis have been the victims of an arguable genocide. We should be focusing on all persecuted communities, & all types of persecution.

As a former journalist and a researcher of the relationship between #news and #socialmedia, I think I understand both sides of the argument over whether tonight's presidential address should be carried live. A few thoughts. #Thread

It's important to look at the decision in itself. Even if you think it violates precedent, and therefore is hypocritical, it may be that the previous decisions were the wrong ones and shouldn't be repeated.

For example, if I used to throw my trash out the car window, arguing that it kept prisoners busy doing litter pickup, that's clearly stupid. If I now know it's dumb and stop doing it, that is a greater good than my being consistent by still doing it.

Russia and Iran are engaged in disinformation campaigns aimed at US citizens. Twitter just released over 10 million tweets from over 4500 Russian and Iranian accounts engaged in influence operations dating back to 2009. We've analyzed the data. Here's what you need to know...

Russia's influence operations are far-reaching, aimed at a number of countries. This, of course, includes ops aimed at US voters in 2016, but also includes their own people. 58 Russian-language accounts tweeted regional "news" related to Crimea, Syria, and other military action.

44 US-directed local "news" accounts amassed over half a million followers. By using local-sounding news source names, they were able to dupe Americans from *other* regions to share what they thought was authentic news.